RFC 2378
The CCSO Nameserver (Ph) Architecture
RFC 2378: The CCSO Nameserver (Ph) Architecture 💖
Okay bestie, let's get the basics out of the way first 🎀
- RFC number: 2378
- Network Working Group: R. Hedberg (Umea University) and P. Pomes (QUALCOMM, Inc.)
- Category: Informational 🦋
- Date: September 1998
- Obsoletes / Updates: the header doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates 🌸
Status of This Memo ✨
So this memo is giving "here's some info for the Internet community" energy 💅 It is not a standard of any kind. It's just info, babe. Distribution is unlimited, so share it with everyone 🫶
Copyright Notice 🔥
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved. The rights are reserved, so be respectful 💜
Abstract 🌈
Okay so the Ph Nameserver from the Computing and Communications Services Office (CCSO), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been around for a while, and a bunch of organizations picked it as their go-to publicly available database for info about people (and other things too) 👑 This doc gives a formal definition of the client-server protocol. The Ph service is built around three things: an information model, a client command language, and the server responses 🧚
1. Overview ✨
1.1. Basic Information Model 🍓
Ph is basically a computer-resident "phone book" 📞 But it's so much more than that, bestie. You can collect arbitrary info about people, and when someone asks about an object in the database, Ph returns info about that entity. It's a nameserver for people and objects, iykyk 💅
It was designed to keep a relatively small amount of arbitrary info about a relatively large number of people or things, and to give access to that info over the Internet 🌸 To give the info some structure, the database manager has to decide which views to present of the real-world objects in the database. Each view is then made up of a bunch of fields and their values. So Ph has the concept of named information, which means sorting info into fields and giving those fields descriptive names 🎀
Here's the lowkey important bit: even if the database lives on the Internet and can be reached from it, it's still local in the sense that no server is supposed to refer a client to another server that might hold the info they want 🙈 A server can, however, keep a list of other Nameservers that clients can use to query for info 🦋
1.1.1. Fields 💖
Every field has a field descriptor 💅 It describes the type and behavior of the field, and it includes the fieldname, the maximum length of info the field can store before truncation, keywords for the field's properties, and some free text about what kind of info the field is meant to hold.
These are the keywords, and they're all so iconic:
Always: Forces the field's contents to always be printed, in addition to whatever fields the query asks for ✨Any: This field is always searched by queries. To be most useful, a field marked asAnyshould also have theIndexedandLookupkeywords as well 🔍Change: Can be changed by the owner of the entry 🫶Default: Printed if no return clause is given in the query 🌈Encrypt: Must be encrypted before transmission 🔐ForcePub: Viewable/searchable regardless of the content of the suppress field 👑Indexed: Fields that are kept track of in the database's index for efficient lookups. At least one indexed field must be present in each query 🧚LocalPub: May be viewed by anyone in the "local" domain or address space. Fields with this keyword are completely invisible outside of the "local" domain. They will not be shown with the fields command (section 3.3), and are disallowed in query commands or return clauses (section 3.8) 🙈Lookup: May be used in the selection part of a query. A Field without this keyword may not be used to select entries 🔎NoMeta: Wildcard searches are disallowed 🚫NoPeople: No entry of type "person" may include this field 💀Private: Field may be viewed by Heros (section 1.4) only 👑Public: May be viewed by anyone. Fields not marked with this keyword may only be viewed by the entry's owner or a Hero 🌸Sacred: Changes to the field are prohibited except via non-network invocations of the server, i.e., from a tty, file, or pipe 🔒Turn: Users may turn off visibility of a field to everyone except themselves and Heros by prefixing the field text with'*'🙈Unique: Any change to the field will be rejected if the change causes the modified field to match the same field in any other entry 💅
1.1.2. Character Sets 🌈
Historically, Ph was restricted to printable characters only, meaning characters with hexadecimal values between 0x20 and 0x7f 🍓 Lately, though, 8-bit clean operating systems are everywhere, so there's no real reason to keep that limit 💖
So this document proposes that ISO-8859-1 shall be regarded as an alternative character set for Ph, with the default still being US-ASCII ✨
Clients that use ISO-8859-1 should ask the server to return ISO-8859-1 by using the "set"-command 🎀
If values are stored using ISO-8859-1 and need to be shown to a client that expects US-ASCII, then the characters with character codes outside the US-ASCII range should be displayed in the "Quoted-Printable" content-transfer-encoding form defined in RFC-2045 [MIME] 🦋
1.2. Standardization issues 🧚
Each Nameserver manager is essentially free to name new fields to suit their organization's special needs 💅 But if you want the directory service to be useful outside your organization, it is recommended that a core set of standard fields always should be present 🫶
So this document defines a couple of standard collections of fields (Appendix A) 🌸
Also, the architecture makes no assumption about the search and retrieval mechanisms used within individual servers. Operators are free to use any kind of dedicated databases, fast indexing software, or even gateways to other directory services to store and retrieve info, if they want 🔥
Ph simply functions as a known front-end, offering a simple data model plus a well known port and simple query language 👑
1.3. Conventions Used in this Document 🍓
In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and server respectively 💜
1.4. Heros 🌈
For Ph, a Hero is equivalent to a superuser or operator 👑 Being in Hero mode means some or all artificial limits are removed. Full Heros may change any field in any entry in the database, and view as many entries as they wish. Heros can also be limited to one field of one other entry 🔒 Hero mode is mostly used for administrative purposes and for delegating group authority over selected fields, and it's controlled by the acl field 🎀
2. Basic Operation 💖
The server host starts the Ph service by listening on TCP port 105 🧚 When a client host wants to use the service, it establishes a TCP connection to the server host. The client and the Ph server then exchange commands and responses (respectively) until the connection is closed or aborted ✨
2.1. Command syntax 💅
Commands in Ph consist of a keyword, optionally followed by zero or more keywords or values. They're separated by spaces, tabs, or newlines, and followed by a carriage return-linefeed (CRLF) pair 🦋 A more thorough description using BNF is given in Appendix C 🔍
Values containing spaces, tabs, or newlines must be enclosed in double quotes ('"'). The sequences "\n", "\t", "\"", and "\\" may be used to mean newline, tab, double quote, and backslash, respectively 🫶
Keywords must be given in lower case. Case in the values of fields is preserved, although queries are not case-sensitive 🌸
2.2. Response syntax 🌈
Responses consist of a result code, followed by additional information possibly separated by entry index and/or field name, and terminated by a CRLF pair 💜
result code:[entry index:][field name:]textResponses to some commands might be multi-lined. In these cases, each line in the response except the last has the appropriate result code negated (prefaced with "-"). The last line then starts with the appropriate result code without negation. Each line must be terminated by a CRLF pair 🍓
If a particular command can apply to more than one entry, the multilined response must be organized so that all info pertaining to each entry is returned on consecutive lines. Each of those lines must have one and the same entry index directly following the resultcode. The first entry index should be 1, and it gets incremented each time a new entry is referred to 🧚
C: query hedberg return email name title
S: 102:There were 3 matches to your request.
S: -200:1: email: canheg95@student.umu.se
S: -200:1: name: Carl Johan Hedberg
S: -200:1: title: Student
S: -200:2: email: parheg95@student.umu.se
S: -200:2: name: Par Hedberg
S: -200:2: title: Student
S: -200:3: email: Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se
S: -200:3: name: Roland Hedberg
S: -200:3: title: Boss of the Network group
S: 200:OkCommands that can apply to more than one field must have the name of the field that the response applies to directly following the entry index 🔥
The text of the response will be either an error message in human readable format, or data from the Nameserver. Whitespace (spaces or tabs) may appear anywhere in the response, but the field name and text columns, if present, must each begin with a whitespace character 💅
Since more than one specific piece of info may be manipulated by a particular command, it's possible for parts of a command to succeed while other parts of the same command fail. This situation is handled as a single multi-line response, with the result code changing as appropriate 🙈
As for FTP, the result codes are in the range 100-699 (or from -699 to -100 for multiline responses), where the leading digit has the following significance:
1: In progress
2: Success
3: More information needed
4: Temporary failure; it may be worthwhile to try again.
5: Permanent failure
6: Phquery specific codesMany commands generate more than one line of response, so every client should be prepared to deal with such continued responses. Note that a command is finished when, and only when, the result code on a response line (treated as a signed integer) is greater than or equal to 200 👑
Clients should assume that any numeric response within the above mentioned ranges is valid. Also, the server is allowed to send one or more lines with result codes between -199 - -100 (the leading "-" indicates a continuation line) and 100 - 199, as status info, before the actual results are transmitted Part 1 of 3 done, bestie, more is coming! 🌈💖
2.3. Format of a search string 🎀
Okay so matching is totally not case sensitive 🙈 and it's usually done word by word. Your query and the entry info both get chopped into words, and then each word gets compared with exact matching. If the order of the words matters, wrap the query in " (double quotes) and the whole search string gets matched against the Nameserver database as one chunk 💅
Word delimiters are <SPACE>, <TAB>, <NEW-LINE>, ,, ; and : 🦋 These characters aren't indexed, so they should not be part of your search string.
Now the wildcards, which are giving detective energy 🕵️♀️ If you don't know the exact spelling, use * (asterisk, 0x2A) for zero or more characters, + (plus, 0x2B) for one or more unknown characters, and ? (question mark, 0x3F) when exactly one character is unknown. If the unknown character can only be one of a few options, put those options in brackets. For example, [ei] means that spot matches an e or an i ✨
3. Commands 🧚
3.1. status 💜
status
This one prints the message of the day and the current status of the nameserver. Iconic, simple, love it 🌸
C: status
S: 100:Qi server $Revision: 1.6 $
S: 100:Ph passwords may be obtained at CCSO Accounting,
S: 100:1420 Digital Computer Lab, between 8:30 and 5 Monday-Friday.
S: 100:Be sure to bring your U of I ID card.
S: 200:Database ready3.2. siteinfo 🍓
siteinfo
This returns info about the server's site. The possible fields are:
Version Version information for the server.
Maildomain The mail domain to use for phquery-type mail.
Mailfield The field containing the specific email address.
Mailbox Mandatory entry that names the field to use as
maildrop.
Administrator Guru in charge of service.
Passwords Person in charge of ordinary password/change requests.
Authenticate Authentication methods supported by the server,
ordered in the site-preferred way. Presently the
following options are defined:
1 attempt auto login
2 allowed to be interactive if needed
4 use ANSI X9.9 challenge/response
8 use v4 Kerberos login
16 use v5 Kerberos [KRB5] login
32 use GSS-API [GSS-API] login
64 use email login
128 password encrypted response to challenge
256 use clear-text password
512 use HMAC [HMAC] with SHA-1 of challenge stringHere's an example of how it looks in action 👀
C: siteinfo
S: -200:1:version:3.1
S: -200:2:maildomain:umu.se
S: -200:3:mailfield:alias
S: -200:4:mailbox:email
S: -200:5:administrator:roland.hedberg@umdac.umu.se
S: -200:6:passwords:roland.hedberg@umdac.umu.se
S: -200:7:authenticate:64:32:128
S: 200: Ok.The mail fields in siteinfo decide how the address info stored in the Nameserver gets used for delivering mail 📬 The specific (username, host) pair where a user's mail should go for final delivery is stored in the field named by {mailbox}, and phquery and similar utilities use that field.
To build a usable email address from Nameserver info, follow this algorithm:
if ({maildomain} is not null) then
address = (contents of {mailfield})@{maildomain}
else
address = (contents of {mailfield})Some existing client software won't format email addresses correctly if {mailbox} is set to anything other than "email" while {maildomain} is non-empty. Ugh, so annoying 😭
If {mailbox} is set to anything other than {email}, then {maildomain} must be reported empty by the siteinfo command. Also, the server must reformat each record's {mailfield} before reporting it to the client. Non-negotiable 💅
3.3. fields 🌈
fields [field ...]
With no argument, you get a list of all available field descriptors. Any space-separated argument(s) limit the list to the named fields. Fields marked with the "LocalPub" keyword (section 1.1.1) should not be delivered outside of the local domain 🔒
The output has two lines for each field. The first line defines the field in technical terms (max length and field attributes), and the second line is a brief description of what the field is meant to hold. The second number in each response is the field id number 🔢
C: fields
S: -200:6:alias:max 32 Indexed Lookup Public Default
S: -200:6:alias:Unique name for user.
S: -200:3:name:max 64 Indexed Lookup Public Default
S: -200:3:name:Fullname
S: -200:2:email:max 128 Lookup Public Default
S: -200:2:email:Account to receive electronic mail.
S: -200:16:other:max 256 Lookup Public Default Change
S: -200:16:other:Other info the user finds important.
S: -200:33:home_phone:max 60 Lookup Public Change Turn
S: -200:33:home_phone:Home telephone number.
S: 200:Ok.3.4. id 🦋
id information
This enters the given info into the Nameserver's log. The Ph client uses it to log the user id of the person running it 🫶
3.5. set 💅
set [option[=value] ...]
This sets the named option for your nameserver session to a value. If no value is given, the default string "on" is used. Used with no arguments, it returns the settable options and their current values ⭐ Some common options are:
echo: If on, echo the client's commands back to the client.limit: Changes that affect more than the specified number of entries result in an error.charset: Return responses to the client in the character set specified.verbose: If on, report interim progress messages to the client.addonly: If on, change commands can only create fields in entries, not modify them.nolog: If on, disable logging.external: If on, make Fields marked as "LocalPub" invisible.
Example time 🍓
C: set verbose=off
S: 200:Done.
C: set
S: -200:echo:off
S: -200:limit:2
S: -200:charset:iso-8859-1
S: -200:verbose:off
S: -200:addonly:off
S: -200:nolog:off
S: -200:external:on
S: 200:Done.3.6. login, logout, answer, clear, email, and xlogin 🔐
3.6.1. login 👑
login [alias]
The "login" command lets client users identify themselves to the Nameserver. More specifically, it ties a client user to a particular entry in the Nameserver, and lets them change fields in that entry and possibly other entries. You also need to be logged in to see certain sensitive fields in your own entry 🫣
To use "login", the client has to prompt the user for their ph alias and password. The client is then responsible for (optionally) encrypting the password and sending it to the server. This is covered in sections 3.6.3 (answer) and 3.6.4 (clear).
C: login foo
S: 301:,:P"_Y$ONU%"SDUQ6&^`ZZ'?*#Y`A_.Z/A>?@SH>*-3.6.2. logout 🌙
logout
The "logout" command lets a logged-in user log out of the Nameserver 👋
C: logout S: 200:Ok.3.6.3. answer 🧠
answer encrypted-response
After a login command, the Nameserver replies with a random challenge string. The Nameserver client encrypts the challenge with the password the user supplied, uuencodes the result into US-ASCII, and sends the printable result back in the "answer" command:
C: login ppomes
S: 301:.%$&.D^67$*1?<.2S@DR:Z@M*)AV-<:4QM>#R>M*HT
C: answer M5K'F:NI(a?M?O2+-a9`48RA#ZF=L9)G)/XRS7Q^0>0@-R7X$WGb`50B]
S: 200:ppomes:Hi how are you?The encryption algorithm is based on a three rotor Enigma engine. There are known attacks on the security of this approach 💀 Be careful out there.
The answer command is also used to return method-specific responses to the xlogin command (section 3.6.6).
3.6.4. clear 🙈
clear cleartext-password
The "clear" command can be used instead of "answer" to finish a login sequence. Its argument is the user's cleartext password. This command is only there to support clients that haven't implemented one of the encryption engines used by "answer". Its use is strongly discouraged, so please don't 🙅♀️
C: login ppomes
S: 301:E=@Y&VW^_9YVI;D5.[EB0:B)9Z#_&X$:2)/eL$VJC87
C: clear MySecret
S: 200:ppomes:Hi how are you?3.6.5. email 📧
email local-userid
The "email" command can also be used instead of "answer" to finish a login sequence. The value of local-userid is the user's login name on the local machine. If all of the following conditions are true, the server will accept the email command:
- The connection to the server originates on port 1023 or less on the client. Note: This is a system port. Port 1023 is not allocated to this use.
- The canonical name of the client's host matches the right-hand side of the email address of the requested alias specified in the "login" command.
- The "local-userid" matches the left-hand side of the email address belonging to the requested alias.
This is a weak but convenient form of authentication 🥺 Depending on the info users are allowed to change about themselves and the threat environment the server runs in, this method might be appropriate. Servers should take care to avoid DNS spoofing 🚨
3.6.6. xlogin 🔑
xlogin option alias
This is the extended login command for GSS, Kerberos v4 and v5, ANSI X9.9 token devices (e.g., SNK/4), and so on. The option is one of the values returned in the Authenticate field of the "siteinfo" command (section 3.2). Alias is the user's alias.
C: xlogin 16 ppomes
S: 301:DoKrbLogin started; send Kerberos mutual authenticator.
C: answer MJa8QO1cJHYz2IdWyg7uhAnixVqgCZQBWr64ciXYku1ktdu....
S: 200:ppomes:Hi how are you?
C: xlogin 4 ppomes
S: 302:SNK Challenge "024142":
C: answer 82344338
S: 200:ppomes:Hi how are you?The answer command returns the requested quantity: a Kerberos authenticator, an X9.9 device response, and so on. Binary quantities are first uuencoded into US-ASCII 🧚
3.7. add ➕
add field=value...
This command adds new entries to the database. You must be logged in and have full Hero privileges (section 1.4) to use "add" 👑
C: add name="doe john" id="123456789" alias="j-doe"
S: 200:Ok.3.8. query 🔍
query [field=]value [field=value] . . . [return field1 [field2]]
If no field is given with a value, the field is assumed to be "name" and/or "nickname". When a query has more than one field-value specification, entries matching all of them are returned (implicit AND) ✨
You can define which fields get returned by adding a "return" clause. If there's no return clause, the Ph server returns a default list of fields. Typical default fields are "alias", "name", "title", "email", "phone", "address", "department", "www", and "other". A return clause is the word "return" followed by a list of fields, or the word "all". If you use "all", every viewable field gets returned 🌷
C: query name=doe name=john
S: 102:There was 1 match to your request.
S: -200:1: alias: j-doe
S: -200:1: name: doe john
S: 200:Ok.3.9. delete
delete [field=]value...okay so delete is the nuclear option 💀 it wipes entire entries out of the database. You must be logged in and have full Hero (section 1.4) privileges to use "delete" 🔥
The arguments are the same as the selection part of a "query" command, so whatever you'd search for, delete goes hunting for matches and removes every single one it finds 🧹
"delete" obeys the Nameserver "limit" option, which can stop it from deleting more entries than you meant to 🫶
C: delete name="doe john" id="123456789" alias="j-doe"
S: 200:1 entries deleted.3.10. change
change [field=]value [make|force] field="value"...bestie, "change" updates one or more fields across one or more entries 🦋 it's split into two clauses: the "change" clause and the "make" or "force" clause ✨
The "change" clause decides which entries get touched. It takes the same arguments as the selection clause of a "query" command. The "make" or "force" clause says which field(s) get changed and what the new value(s) are 💖 The "force" clause is only used to make non-encrypted changes to fields marked "Encrypt" 🔐
You must be logged in to use "change" 💅
"change" obeys the Nameserver "limit" option too, so it can't change the field contents of more entries than intended 🌸
C: change alias=j-doe force password=NewSecret
S: 200:1 entry changed.
C: set limit=500
S: 200:Done.
C: change fax="(619) 555-1212" make fax="(760) 555-1212"
S: 200: 113 entries changed.3.11. help
help [{native|client} [topic ...]]"help" prints help on the Nameserver or on specific clients 📚 If client is specified, it should be a valid Nameserver client identifier, such as "ph" 🧚 The client-specific help gets searched for the topic first, and then the native help gets searched. If topic is omitted, you get a list of all available help texts. If "native" or client are also omitted, you get a list of clients instead 🌈
C: help native 101
-200:1:101:
-200:1: The Nameserver echo option is set. The text of this response is
-200:1: the command you just gave, which has not (yet) been executed.
200:Ok.3.12. quit/exit/stop
quit"quit" terminates the session with the Nameserver and makes the client exit 👋 bye bye 🎀
C: quit
S: 200:Bye!4. Security
4.1. Transport Layer
okay this one is SO important 🚨 If there's no encryption between client and server, all Nameserver traffic is unsecure 😭 Kerberos v4, v5, and the GSS-API all provide encryption mechanisms, but the Nameserver protocol doesn't support any way to negotiate encryption between client and server 💀 That means anybody on the network linking the client and server can see all the traffic. And cleartext traffic can be modified in transit too 🙈 Possible ways to fix this would be to use something like TLS [TLS] or IPSec [IPSEC] 🔒
4.2. Server Authentication
Unless one of the mutual authentication mechanisms is used, e.g., Kerberos 4/5 or GSS-API, there is no way to prove the identity of a server 🫣 Also, there's no mechanism to prove a given server is authoritative for a set of information 🧐
4.3. Secure User Authentication
The Ph protocol lets client and server negotiate several authentication protocols, some weak and some strong 💪 It does not prohibit cleartext passwords, which should be depreciated 📉 but they're still useful when dealing with some clients 🥲
4.4. Privacy and Access Lists
Directory services like the CCSO white pages server, which hold information on people, have to think about privacy 🙈 This document describes one way to partition specific attributes away from unwanted access by marking them visible only to the "local" community, visible only to the person connected with the information, or visible only to the database administrator 🔐👑
4.5. References
[GSS-API] Linn, J., "Generic Security Service Application Program
Interface, Version 2", RFC 2078, January 1997.
[HMAC] Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M., and R. Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed-
Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104, February
1997.
[IPSEC] Atkinson, R., "Security Architecture for the Internet
Protocol", RFC 1825, August 1995.
[KRB5] Kohl, J., and C. Neuman, "The Kerberos Network
Authentication Service (V5)", RFC 1510, September 1993.
[TLS] Dierks, T., and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol,
Version 1.0", Work in Progress.
[MIME] Freed, N., and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions, (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996.5. Miscellaneous
5.1. Authors' Addresses
Roland Hedberg
Umdac
Umea University
901 87 Umea
Sweden
EMail: Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se
Paul Pomes
Qualcomm Inc
6455 Lusk Blvd
San Diego, CA
USA
EMail: ppomes@qualcomm.comAppendix A
Default fields and suggested lengths connected to different object types 📋✨
All entries: Information common to all entries
type 64
name 256
address 128
proxy 32
password 32
type=phone: Information found in a phonebook
phone 64
fax 64
type=person: Information about a human being
alias 32
forename 64
surname 64
group 32
email 128
public_key 4096
nickname 128
www 256
acl 128
type=staff: Information about an employee
empno 16
department 64
supervisor 64
secretary 64
office_location 128
office_address 128
office_phone 64
title 64
pager 64
hours 128
type=unit: Information about an organizational unit
email 128
www 256
public_key 4096Appendix B
Result codes 🎯 this is basically the Nameserver's way of talking back to you 💬
100 In progress (general).
101 Echo of current command.
102 Count of number of matches to query.
103 No hostname found for IP address.
200 Success (general).
201 Database ready, but read-only.
300 More information (general).
301 Encrypt this string.
302 Print this prompt.
400 Temporary error (general).
401 Internal database error.
402 Lock not obtained within timeout period.
403 Login would have been OK, but database read-only
475 Database unavailable; try later.
500 Permanent error (general).
501 No matches to query.
502 Too many matches to query.
503 Not authorized for requested information.
504 Not authorized for requested search criteria.
505 Not authorized to change requested field.
506 Request refused; must be logged in to execute.
507 Field does not exist.
508 Field is not present in requested entry.
509 Alias already in use.
510 Not authorized to change this entry.
511 Not authorized to add entries.
512 Illegal value.
513 Unknown option.
514 Unknown command.
515 No indexed field in query.
516 No authorization for request.
517 Operation failed because database is read-only.
518 To many entries selected by change command.
520 CPU usage limit exceeded.
521 Change command would have overridden existing field,
and the "addonly" option is on.
522 Attempt to view "Encrypted" field.
523 Expecting "answer" or "clear".
524 Names of help topics may not contain "/".
525 Email authentication failed
526 Host name address not found in DNS
527 Reverse DNS lookup does not match forward DNS lookup
528 General Kerberos database error.
529 Selected authentication method not available
590 Remote queries not allowed.
598 Command unknown.
599 Syntax error.
600 Ambiguous or multiple matchAppendix C
Description of the client command language using the augmented Backus-Naur Form (RFC822) 🧩
response = code [index] [field] text CRLF
code = [-] LDIG 2DIGIT ":"
index = number ":"
field = 1*SPACE attribute ":" 1*SPACE
text = 1*( CHAR / LWSP-char )
command = ph-command CRLF
ph-command = "status" / a-command / oa-command
ph-command =/ av-command / answer-command / query-command
ph-command =/ delete-command / change-command / "help" / quit-command
a-command = ("siteinfo"/"fields"/"id"/"login"/"help"/"email"/
"clear") [attribute]
oa-command = ("xlogin") number attribute
av-command = ("set"/"add"/"make") 1*attribute-value
answer-command = ("answer") 1*printable
query-command = ("query"/"ph") 1*selection ["return" 1*attribute]
quit-command = "quit" / "exit" / "stop"
change-command = "change" 1*selection make 1*attribute-value
delete-command = "delete" selection
selection = value / attribute-value
attribute-value = attribute "=" value
value = 1*(cstring / quoted-string / set)
cstring = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT / S_SPEC / set / quoted-pair )
attribute = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT / "_" / "-" )
number = 1*(DIGIT)
quoted-string = <"> 1*(qtext/quoted-pair) <">
quoted-pair = "\" CHAR
qtext = 1*( CHAR / CR / SPEC1 / DELIMIT1 / DELIMIT2 / LWS )
set = '[' 1*(ALPHA/DIGIT) ']'
LWSP-char = SPACE / HTAB
LWS = 1*([CRLF] (LWSP-char))
CRLF = CR LF
S_SPEC = '*'/'+'/'?'
SPEC1 = "=" / "*" / "?" / "+" / "[" / "]"
SPEC2 = "\" / """
DELIMIT1 = SPACE / HTAB / LF
DELIMIT2 = "," / ";" / ":"
PRINTABLE = %d32..%d126
CTL = %d0..%d31 / %d127..%d160
ALPHA = %d65..%d90 / %d97..%d122
DIGIT = %d48..%d57
LDIG = %d49..%d54
SPACE = %d32
SEP = (CR LF) / LF
CR = %d13
LF = %d10
HTAB = %d9
CHAR = %d33..%d126 / %d160..%d255
OTHER = "(" / ")" / "-" / "." / "/"
"@" / "$" / "_" / "!" / "~" /
"'" / "#" / "&" / "<" / ">" /
"^" / "`" / "{" / "|" / "}"Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved. 💜
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ✨
📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc2378 1998-09
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms